Study Desk

Now I am sending these believers, so that our boasting about you in this matter may not turn out to be empty words. But, just as I said, you will be ready with your help.

However, if the people from Macedonia should come with me and find out that you are not ready, how ashamed we would be—not to speak of your shame—for feeling so sure of you!

So I thought it was necessary to urge these believers to go to you ahead of me and get ready in advance the gift you promised to make. Then it will be ready when I arrive, and it will show that you give because you want to, not because you have to.

And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause.

He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times, so that many will thank God for your gifts which they receive from us.

And so with deep affection they will pray for you because of the extraordinary grace God has shown you.

Of course we would not dare classify ourselves or compare ourselves with those who rate themselves so highly. How stupid they are! They make up their own standards to measure themselves by, and they judge themselves by their own standards!

So we do not boast about the work that others have done beyond the limits God set for us. Instead, we hope that your faith may grow and that we may be able to do a much greater work among you, always within the limits that God has set.

I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called "apostles" of yours!

While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you.

And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the believers who came from Macedonia brought me everything I needed. As in the past, so in the future: I will never be a burden to you!

So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.

I repeat: no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool, just so I will have a little to boast of.

But since there are so many who boast for merely human reasons, I will do the same.

You yourselves are so wise, and so you gladly tolerate fools!

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.

So I will boast about this man—but I will not boast about myself, except the things that show how weak I am.

How were you treated any worse than the other churches, except that I did not bother you for financial help? Please forgive me for being so unfair!

I will be glad to spend all I have, and myself as well, in order to help you. Will you love me less because I love you so much?

We pray to God that you will do no wrong—not in order to show that we are a success, but so that you may do what is right, even though we may seem to be failures.